Health, illness and medical care are universal aspects of human experience--matters of life and death. This book explores the ways residents of McLean County, Illinois, dealt with childbirth, disease, injury and death from the 1830s to the present. It also compares local with national developments. Beginning with conditions facing migrants of European and African heritage, the book describes the "do-it-yourself" healthcare practiced in the county in the early nineteenth century.  It moves on to consider the development of professional medicine in the area. It describes the evolution of public health measures in response to population growth and changes in theories of disease causation. It considers the flowering of the patent medicine trade. It discusses the development of hospitals and their relationships to local healthcare delivery. The final chapters of the book use information provided by local physicians, nurses, and members of the general public to describe healing and suffering in the twentieth century.

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